A Dhaka court has granted bail to Prothom Alo editor Matiur Rahman over the death of Naimul Abrar Rahat, a student of Dhaka Residential Model School and College who died being electrocuted.
The editor surrendered to the lower court on Monday upon the completion of the four-week bail earlier granted by the High Court and made a fresh appeal for bail.
Acting Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Md Kaisarul Islam granted the bail with a Tk 2,000 bond following a hearing.
Lawyer Ehsanul Haque Shomaji, Aminul Gani Tito and Prashanta Kumar Karmakar represented Rahman while lawyer Omar Farooq Asif was the legal counsel for the petitioners.
The High Court bench of Justice Obaidul Hassan and Justice AKM Zahirul Huq first granted Rahman bail in advance on Jan 20. The court ordered him to surrender to the magistrate’s court.
The judges also ordered the law enforcement agencies not to harass Rahman and five others named in the charge-sheet who appealed for bail in advance.
The five others who filed bail petitions are Anisul Hoque, associate editor of the newspaper, Mahitul Alam, senior assistant editor of Kishor Alo, Kabir Bakul, the head of events and activation of Kishor Alo, and Shah Paran Tushar and Shuvashish Pramanik, assistants of events and activation of Kishor Alo.
Abrar was electrocuted during an event organised by Prothom Alo’s youth magazine Kishor Alo on the school campus.
Abrar, 15, a nonresident student of class nine in Dhaka Residential Model College, received electric shock from a power generator set up behind a stage erected for ‘Ki Ananda’ — an event organised by Kishor Alo, a magazine published by Rahman.
After the fatal electric shock, Abrar was taken to the Universal Medical College Hospital in Mohakhali where doctors pronounced him dead.
His father Mujibur Rahman filed a case with the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court in Dhaka on Nov 6 alleging that negligence on part of the organisers led to his son’s death.
On Jan 16, Inspector Abdul Alim of Mohammadpur Police Station submitted an investigation report on the case naming 10 people and mentioning the ‘negligence’ of the Kishor Alo authority for Abrar’s death.
The Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court issued an arrest warrant against the accused based on the report.– bdnews24.com
